THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity
    • Blog (Archived)

WOLF CREAM

2/7/2018

1 Comment

 
I made a new infographic today on the abbreviations of chemical elements, and there's one origin everybody is surely scratching their heads about. I'd love to go more in depth, anyway. The symbol for Tungsten is W. That stands for Wolfram, which  is really unsurprising, considering that wolfram was the archaic term for "tungsten" before that fancy new Swedish word came along (this is. Here, however, it gets interesting. The prevailing theory is that this comes from a German portmanteau combining the words wolf, meaning "wolf", and rahm, meaning "cream". This is (a calque) modeled on the Latin phrase lupi spuma, which meant "wolf foam" and also described that metal for some reason. However, wolf is what we're looking at. Obviously from the same source as English wolf, it, through Middle and High German, comes from Proto-Germanic wulfaz, from Proto-Indo-European wlkwos, meaning "dangerous". At the same time as this was developing, rahm was also coming through Middle and High German from Proto-Germanic, in this case from raumaz (still meaning "cream") and ultimately deriving from Proto-Indo-European ru, meaning "skim". Though it is debated that rahm might have actually come from a word for "soot" or just a surname, if true, this would make the Wolfram|Alpha computational search engine have a name meaning "alpha dangerous skim".
1 Comment
Nebu Uchad-Nezzar
1/23/2020 03:55:00 am

We live in a society.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic. I have a linguistics degree from Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote my thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy traveling, trivia, philosophy, board games, conlanging, and art history. 

    Archives

    December 2023
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    TAGS

    All
    Interview
    Satire

Picture
CONTACT: [email protected]
SUBSTACK • TIKTOK • INSTAGRAM • YOUTUBE
I do not have a facebook account that's an impostor
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity
    • Blog (Archived)